AT the Leveson Inquiry into media standards former Sun reporter and editor of the News of The World and Daily Mirror Piers Morgan refused to answer questions under oath. He did listen to a voicemail left by Sir Paul McCartney for his former wife Heather Mills. But Morgan says he won’t talk about it because he wasn’t to protect his source.

PM: “It depends on the circumstances in which you were listening to it. I’m not going to discuss where I heard it or who played it to me.”

Lord Justice Leveson, chimed in:

“The only person who would lawfully be able to listen to the message is the lady in question or somebody authorised on her behalf to listen to it. Isn’t that right?”

PM: “Possibly… Sorry, what do you expect me to say?”

Leveson says he is “perfectly happy” to call Heather Mills to testify “as to whether she authorised you to listen to her voicemails”.

You imagine Lady Macca – the Sun’s Lady Mucca – would relish the chance to shine as the victim.

PM: “All we know for a fact about Lady Heather Mills McCartney is that in their divorce case Paul McCartney stated as a fact that she had recorded their conversations and given them to the media.”

Heather Mills alleges a senior Mirror Group journalist admitted hacking voicemails left for her by Sir Paul in 2001. That hack was not Piers Morgan.

Morgan then puffed up and says he felt “like a rock star having an album brought out from his back catalogue about all his worst-ever hits. I do feel still very proud of a lot of the very good stuff that both the Mirror and the News of the World did during my tenure as editor. I’ve been watching a lot of the Inquiry and I think a lot of it has been very useful, but I do think there has to be a better balance because a lot of the very good things that the newspapers were doing in those periods and continue to do are not being highlighted at all.”

Noble stuff. It can only get more high class with the appearance of Heather Mills…